Doing business on your own terms

When founder Diane Stanbra “popped back from Australia for 10 days with her little carry-on bag” in March 2020, she – like most of us – had no idea what was ahead.

As Covid enveloped the globe, she found herself stuck in New Zealand, with her Australia-based event catering venture, Picnic Box, at a standstill. 

Fortunately, Stanbra had something up her sleeve. Through Picnic Box, she’d met Australian companies making chutneys and relishes from surplus goods. “I’d always thought when I got back to New Zealand, I’d connect with companies doing that, but there just weren’t any,” she says. 

Seeing a gap, Stanbra connected with chef – and soon-to-be cofounder – Royce Bold. 

While “dubious about the whole thing”, Bold couldn’t deny that gap offered great opportunity, Stanbra says, particularly when the chance to take part in the 2021 Countdown Kete Accelerator emerged. 

In and out of lockdowns, product development mostly occurred in Bold’s kitchen as the pair tackled their first challenge: excess white bread. While Bold experimented with different recipes, Stanbra would drive by his house to collect the goods from his letterbox. 

“God knows what the neighbours thought,” she says.

‍Rescued was born when Bold and Stanbra discovered the old bread could be turned into flour. They then found ways to repurpose surplus fruits, vegetables, and even more unusual ingredients, such as spent juniper berries from gin production. 

Following the Countdown Kete programme, Rescued products were stocked throughout Woolworths supermarkets in New Zealand. The business was also a featured startup in London’s 2023 Future Food-Tech Summit. 

Recently, Rescued was awarded $50,000 after winning the inaugural Brand For Good competition run by creative studio Tomorrow. Those funds will help revamp the Rescued brand as it prepares to expand its reach. 

Stanbra says the venture now has a strong pipeline of customers and, following the last couple of years of research and development, is moving into positive cash flow. Since its first food rescue in March 2022, it has processed over 35 tonnes of surplus food. 

 “The dream is to go global because food waste is a global problem,” Stanbra says. 

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‍Stanbra sits down with Caffeine to discuss her founder journey. 

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What do you wish you knew starting out? 

How to plan for a global pandemic. 

I’ve had some amazing opportunities in my previous business. For instance, being chosen for an accelerator programme which helped me scale in Australia. 

I spent three months surrounded by these phenomenal business brains, but not one of the topics we covered dealt with your business being annihilated overnight. 

At the end of the day, it’s life and business. It’s not predictable, and you can only control as much as you can. But now, everyone will be more aware of business continuity risk and how to build that into the business going forward.  

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What’s something that went wrong? 

Everything. All the time. Our first scaled bread flour is an example. 

We had 350 kilos going into a dehydrator, which was a major milestone; the first full-scale dehydrating we’d done. Through no fault of the [facilitators], it came out tasting and smelling like ginger. They had dehydrated ginger earlier.

We’re like, ‘Oh, okay, interesting’, but now we use it in our peach and ginger cake. 

It takes adaptability, resilience and always just backing yourself. Many things will go wrong, but there is a solution. Patience is a big thing.

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Who has been helpful to your success? 

Upcycling is a $53-billion US market with massive growth, but it’s yet to catch on in New Zealand. 

No business exists without customers. We're incredibly thankful the companies we work with – Woolworths, Montana, Bidfood, Pullman Hotels – are visionaries. They are actually doing what many others are just talking about. 

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What’s the best advice you’ve received? 

Know your numbers. They are the life and death of a business. It’s taken me a long time, but now I appreciate that advice, because if you’re not making money, or don’t have a plan to make money, you don’t have a sustainable business. 

My second bit of advice, I stole from my brother. I was in my Covid bubble with this dilemma of ‘Do I do it again, this whole startup thing?’ He said do it, but on your own terms.

You often forget that as a founder, it’s just yes, yes, yes. Now, I’m a lot wiser, a lot more confident, and more comfortable saying no. 

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What advice would you give an early-stage entrepreneur?

It’s all about people and relationships. I cannot stress that enough. Immerse yourself in building your networks and connections. 

Also, be sure that you’ll get regular paying customers before you start investing your life savings, your family’s money, and other [assets]. It doesn’t have to be right away, but have them in the pipeline and be sure you’re doing something the customer actually wants. 

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What was your first entrepreneurial moment? 

I was a late starter. I had been in the corporate world for a long time, and then it was just one of those moments when I was working so hard for someone else’s success that I thought: ‘Hold on a minute. If I’m going to work this hard, why don’t I do it for me?’ 

I used to drive my partner at the time absolutely nuts because I would come up with all these random business opportunities and ideas. But, when I came up with the Picnic Box idea, it was the first time he didn’t say it was a crap idea. 

He was a successful businessman himself. He forwarded me a 40-page business plan template and armed with that, I launched Picnic Box. By all accounts, up until Covid it was successful. We had launched into Melbourne and had our first Sydney event.

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